If
anybody had any illusions that John Kerry has an ounce of courage or
political conviction in his multi-millionaire body, his early concession of
the “re-selection” of George W. Bush will forever dispel them.

In spite of the theft of
nearly one million votes from Kerry even before election day, due to
systematic removal of voters from the rolls and the “spoiling” of absentee
ballots, as extensively documented by journalist
Greg Palast, Kerry quickly conceded.

In spite of the wide
disparity between election exit polls in Ohio and other states that
indicated that Kerry was the clear winner and the so-called election
“results” delivered to the media via the Diebold machines, Kerry refused to
question the legitimacy of the “election.”

In spite of the fact that
the counting of the votes in Ohio and Florida had not been completed, even
after the Kerry campaign had pledged to “count every vote,” Kerry urged
unity behind a war criminal and the worst president in U.S. history.

“We are required now to
work together for the good of our country,” said Kerry in his concession
speech. “We must join in common effort, without remorse or recrimination,
without anger or rancor.”

Kerry asking people opposed
to the Bush regime to “unite” behind a war criminal like Bush is like having
a German political leader in 1933 asking the Jews to unite behind Chancellor
Hitler!

Bush stole Tuesday's
“election” just like he did the 2000 election. I had a bad feeling about
this “election” -­ and my worst fears came true when John Kerry conceded the
“election” to Bush. Not only did the right wing fundamentalist corporate
theocrats again steal the presidency, but also they seized and solidified
complete control of the House and Senate.

In retrospect, the energy
that many progressives put behind Kerry would have been much better put
solidifying and expanding national movements against the Bush regime’s war
against you, me, our environment and the world. We must not join in a
“common effort” with the Bush regime, as Kerry asks us to do. We must
instead fan the flames of rage and anger against the theocracy.

The stolen election must be
seen in the context of the rise of the right wing assault on the U.S.
working class and the people of the world to maximum corporate profits and
market share. Both the Democratic and Republican leadership have moved
increasingly to the right over the past three decades.

“Right-wing, two-party
politics in the U.S. has been the rule since the end of the Vietnam War,”
said Seth Sandronsky, a co-editor of Because People Matter. “There are many
features of this trend. Yet all of them reflect the demise of the post-WW II
boom in which big U.S. corps earned high profits by ruling the world market
for autos, steel, etc. U.S. labor unions, having purged radicals from their
ranks to get junior partner status with big corps and the Democratic Party,
were unprepared for the upper-class attack that began in the 1970s as
commercial competition from European and Japanese rivals emerged.”

He continued, “Such social
relations drove and are driving the assault on U.S. unions and the working
class (major benefits such as health care and pensions, and wages) to expand
corporate profits and market share in a time of slow/no growth, nationally
and globally. How people produce and distribute goods and services, or
economics (base) drive electoral politics (superstructure). An old German
made that point 150 years ago. It still holds true now in my view.”

To express our anger, rage
and sadness about the “election” and the increasing right wing attacks on
people in the U.S. and throughout the world, a group of around 100 activists
demonstrated in front of the federal building in Sacramento on Wednesday
November 2, as part of the nationwide “Beyond War” actions.

The call to action under
which we demonstrated, issued the week before, said, “This year the world is
counting on us to expand the election year debate beyond democrats versus
republicans to the larger issue of whether the U.S. will be a democracy or
an empire. No matter who wins, we demand social justice at home and abroad
and an end to the occupation of Iraq. If we want to live in a real democracy
voting at the ballot box is not enough. Vote with our hands, feet and
imaginations every day of every year! “

We held signs, yelled, beat
drums, marched up and down the street and commiserated over the mess that
this country is in. The rain kept coming down as a quartet of bicycle cops
nervously watched over us. Three TV stations covered the event and
interviewed participants, including Nik Janos, local peace and
anti-globalization activist.

Darien De Lu, longtime
peace and social justice activist, organized a “mass screaming” under the
eave of the federal building to express our rage and grief after we left the
sidewalk at 6 p.m. “Ah, Shit!,” we shouted as loudly, angrily and obscenely
as we could as we held hands, under the urging of Darien. Everybody greatly
appreciated Darien for suggesting such a wonderful idea.

After we screamed three
times in unison, we one by one spoke about our feelings regarding the
election and the abysmal state of American “democracy.” When my turn came, I
screamed as loudly and angrily as I could, “Down with the Bush
Dictatorship!!!” It felt very therapeutic and empowering for us to express
our anger against the regime.

Where do we go from here?
“Beyond Voting” should become a permanent theme of a massive movement
against globalization, war, racism and suppression of our civil liberties
and rights under the Bush junta. There is a definite place for voting in our
movement, particularly in regard to getting progressives elected to city
councils and school boards.

But it’s time now to focus
our community organizing “Beyond Voting.” In contrast with Kerry’s call to
stand behind the “president,” we must do the very opposite: vigorously fan
the flames of dissent in our society and do absolutely everything we can to
stop Bush’s war at home and abroad.

The resistance can take a
variety of forms, ranging from mass national and regional mobilizations to
local vigils and direct actions. Creative, nonviolent cultural activist
events that allow us to have fun while organizing against this corrupt,
decadent system are my favorite forms of action, since I’m a satirical
songwriter and guitarist.

We must become relentless
media activists, not only writing in the alternative media but finding
creative ways to get our message into the mass media. For example, Pat
Driscoll, local green Congressional candidate, got a lot of recent press
coverage by the Sacramento Bee, News & Review and other media during his
campaign against Robert Matsui.

We should completely
support those nonviolent activists, such as those in SOA Watch, who practice
civil disobedience and risk federal prison terms to stop the war machine and
the corporate agenda of globalization that it serves. I agree entirely with
Father Roy Bourgeois, Founder of SOA Watch, that the U.S. military and its
surrogates serve as the brutal enforcer of the agenda of corporate
globalization.

At the same time, we should
respect those that believe in more militant tactics, such as land takeovers
and revolutionary armed self-defense against one of the most violent and
ruthless regimes in world history. Self defense against state terrorism and
violence is a HUMAN RIGHT, as enunciated clearly in our Declaration of
Independence and the U.N. Charter.

We must move beyond voting.
We must use November’s stolen election as a rude wake-up call to building
our local, regional, state, national and international movements. We must
meet, talk and demonstrate together in the coming year to oppose the Bush
regime’s domestic and foreign policies.

On Air America Radio, one
host pointed out that it took over 30 years for the Christian right to fully
achieve their current takeover of political power in the U.S. This may be
true, but we really can't wait 30 years to take our country back from the
neo-cons, corporate criminals and religious extremists that rule it now.

If we don’t stop the Bush
regime from destroying the global environment and engulfing the world in the
flames of endless war, we may not have a future! There is an urgency to our
resistance that no other movement in history has ever encountered,
especially when we have the largest nuclear arsenal in the world in the
hands of irrational, unstable theocrats and fascists. We must flush the Bush
corporate dictatorship down the toilet of history!

Daniel Bacher is
an outdoor writer/alternative journalist/satirical songwriter from
Sacramento California. He is also a long-time peace, social justice and
environmental activist. Email:
danielbacher@hotmail.com.